• Nepenthe
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    12 years ago

    I don’t understand how people do this, to be honest. Do you know how spicy food works? The receptor it triggers in your mouth is TRPV1, which does handle heat regulation and sensitivity, but it’s also a pain receptor. Like, selectively removing it to treat the pain caused by bone cancer kind of receptor.

    The kind of heat that sets it off is heat above 109F/43C, in addition to things like scorpion venom. Presumably it comes through as heat. Everyone tells me it feels hot. I don’t get “heat.” I get what is clearly agony in one of the most innervated areas of the body, and science backed me up on this.

    Y’all are addicted to licking the curling iron and I’m the weird one

    • Unaware7013
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      22 years ago

      You’re probably just sensitive to capsaicin. I love hot food, and it takes a lot for me to end up in agony like you described. But I’ve definitely been that guy at an Indian place where I’m sweating profusely while telling the staff the food is delicious.

      Finding a hot sauce that tastes good/doesn’t taste like hot garbage is harder than actually eating food seasoned with it.

    • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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      12 years ago

      My mom, a wonderful lady in every other sense, was a terrible cook. The blandest of the bland. Unseasoned potatoes and overcooked meat was the norm. Even when she branched out to other things like stir fry and pizza, she still somehow managed to make them utterly flavorless.

      I distinctly recall one day at school, somehow I ended up with a little too much pepper in my tomato soup. It was like my taste buds had finally come of age or something. I started regularly adding too much pepper to my tomato soup. Then Tobasco. Then, as a young adult I found a specialty hot sauce place in the mall. It was the second coming!

      Now, I live in Korea, and wow they’re not afraid to spice it up here. I do get tired of the constant “Oh, the waygook (foreigner) can handle spicy food!” refrain though.

    • Before refridgeration was developed, food rotting was a major problem in the hot, humid tropics. The solution was to poison the food with spice - it would be somewhat unpleasant to eat, but would kill pests. I suppose over the years we got used to it.

      Fun fact: English has words for four basic tastes (sweet, salt, sour and bitter). Indian languages have a fifth basic taste - chilly or spicy.

    • @BCsven@lemmy.ca
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      -12 years ago

      Some people go overboard with peppers that are all heat and no flavour; Those add nothing to the dish. Proper Thai or Indian with a mix of spice brings out the flavours, so its hot but also delicious. And it hits the mouth different. Like those hot pepper challenges arent food, they just burn all over lips mouth and throat, that should never a dining experience